for the better
by SmilesLasting
Summary: The war is over, but there are still many things that need to be resolved. Sasuke ponders the choices he's made and comes to a hesitant conclusion: once again, he will leave. After all, things are changing, and things will continue to change. / hints of sasusaku & naruhina
1. and then he was gone

[A/N] It's been a while since I wrote something in the canon Naruto world (not AU). Hope you enjoy~

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**for the better** | chapter 1: _and then he was gone__  
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* * *

The village is essentially destroyed. Broken homes and shattered realities decorate Konoha's roads; ninja struggle to rebuild their lives, and while there is a simmering joy of victory in their hearts, they cannot ignore the fact that everything they once knew is no longer as it was.

Naruto works alongside the others to clean up the rubble, grinning, his jocularity contagious. He never takes a break unless it's to check up on how everybody is faring. Unanimously, he is acknowledged as something beyond the Hokage level, yet he still loudly proclaims every chance he gets that he's going to be the Hokage, dattebayo! Hinata is always somewhere close by the blond, and sometimes the two exchange secret glances that express much more than words ever could.

Sakura repairs broken bodies with an intense concentration. Her delicate fingers create miracles as her chakra dives in and heals seemingly irreparable injuries, and the look of relief she wears when her magic is done tugs at men's heartstrings. A few men have approached her, probably courageous on the high from the Alliance's victory, but she'll smile sadly and give them an apologetic bow, and then continue right on with her healing, not allowing her emotions to stunt her work.

Sasuke watches his two teammates, silently, warmly. Three weeks have passed since the final fall of Uchiha Madara. _I'm going to change Konoha_, he said, but people still do not trust him, and even he isn't perfectly intent on this goal of becoming Hokage anymore. He had been so sure, so focused, but now that he can see the effect of Naruto on the others, spreading joy and hope, he knows that his rival can create the most change in this village for the better.

Things are changing, and things will continue to change. His heart, too, is changing.

The war is over, but there are still many things that need to be resolved.

* * *

"Why?!" Naruto's hand lurches forward, and the tan fingers curl into the cloth of Sasuke's black kimono. "Why are you leaving again?! Sasuke!"

The last Uchiha remains cool, the inky eyes gazing straightforwardly back at the piercing blue of his best friend. "There are still a lot of things I need to resolve, dumbass."

"But why do you have to leave?" cries the blond. "Where is this coming from? Do you still think you don't belong? Everybody will accept you—they just need some time to get used to the idea—"

"It's not a matter of belonging," cuts in Sasuke impatiently.

"Then what is it?" Naruto's anger dissolves into a melancholy. "Do you really not think of Konoha as home anymore?" The nasally voice cracks as the words are spoken.

Sasuke wants to look away from that hurtful expression on his rival's face, but his pride will not allow him to.

"I'll always be here to welcome you, Sasuke-kun, if you ever want to come home," the voice of their other teammate quietly says.

Both the boys turn their heads sharply to peer at her, surprised at her sudden interruption when she had otherwise been silent during their exchange.

She smiles at them, takes a breath in. "If you want to go, then go. Live your life." She meets the inky eyes of the boy she loves, the boy who wants to leave. "Not for revenge, or to protect other people. For yourself."

He looks at her, the inky gaze cloudy. Her green gaze, staring just as frankly back, is hard, determined, yet there is a gentleness there reserved only for those closest to her. Who is this woman standing in front of him, so willing to let him go? Where did the desperate, twelve-year-old Sakura disappear to? Her love for him is different from what it once was.

Things are changing, and things will continue to change. Sakura's love for him is not an exception to this fact.

"If you say it like that..." Naruto drops his hand from Sasuke's shirt, and scratches the back of his head. "I can't tell you not to go. But..." He grins, and if Sasuke hadn't known him so well, he wouldn't have noticed the sadness hiding in the twinkling blue eyes. "Just know you can always come back here, alright?"

Uchiha Sasuke looks at the blond standing beside him, who gave up so much to drag him back. His dark eyes flicker to the girl wearing a sad smile, who loved him for who he was and loves him for who he is.

And he smiles.

"Yeah."

* * *

He is surprised at the amount of people who send him off at the gate. Originally he planned to leave in the middle of the night, so no one would be there to watch him go. But he remembered the last time he had left in such a manner, and the girl he hurt so much doing so, and decided against it.

Things are changing. He, too, wants to actively make change.

Still Sasuke is a little uncomfortable with all the eyes on him. He's aware that some of them are relieved that he is leaving; others are confused. But regardless of how they feel, they are there, to tell him farewell and good luck. He sweeps a glance over the small crowd. Kakashi stands somewhere near the back, nonchalant, holding his favorite orange book. They make eye contact, and Kakashi smiles, his sleepy-looking dark eyes, now both visible and lacking the Sharingan, crinkling.

_Good luck_, the jounin mouths at him through his mask. Sasuke offers a tiny nod in response.

The inky eyes continue to travel through the crowd. Naruto stands at front and center, Hinata to his right and Sakura to his left. The blond takes a step forward, offering a hand, the first to give his farewell.

"See you, Sasuke."

Sasuke takes the proffered hand. "Hn," he mutters, as his teammate grins at him.

"Good luck, Sasuke-kun," says Hinata.

"Bye, Sasuke-kun!" Ino cries.

A couple of the other Konoha former rookies shoot him hesitant smiles. Kiba's looks feral, as usual. Shikamaru's is cocky but genuine. Chouji looks unsure. Shino hides behind sunglasses and a high collar, but raises a hand in salute.

"Please find a path in which you can truly blossom, Sasuke-kun!" shouts Lee, as Tenten rolls her eyes beside him.

"I'm sure Neji would also wish the same for you," Tenten says warmly. "Best of luck."

Gaara, having silently stood behind Naruto, now steps up as well and offers a hand. "Farewell," he says simply. Sasuke takes the Kazekage's hand, and they share a brief handshake.

Sasuke pulls on the strap of his backpack before he looks up to meet the stormy green eyes of his other teammate. "Sakura," he murmurs, as she wordlessly steps forward and wraps her arms around his neck. It's a tight hold, warm and a little desperate, and everybody and everything seems to grow quiet and faded out around them.

Then she pulls away herself, the little moment over. As she steps back, their surroundings again come into focus. "Good-bye, Sasuke-kun," she says, smiling, and he realizes that she is crying.

He nods.

"You can always, always come back here. This is your home."

There's a moment of silence, as everybody watches on. He can feel their eyes on him, weighing him down, as he struggles to form words. "Thank you," he finally says, and Sakura breaks into a grin. Just like that, all the tension dissipates.

"See you," she murmurs.

He turns with a hand raised in farewell. He's leaving.

(He's leaving to find a life for himself. He's leaving so that he can discover what it is to be his own person, with no expectations, no presupposed discrimination. He's leaving because for far too long, he's been depending on others to create meaning for his life instead of him creating that meaning himself. He's leaving because he needs to live.)

As he finally walks away, the fading voices behind him yelling wishes for luck and waving at his retreating back, he lets a small smile curve his pale lips. He has a goal, now: to find his purpose, his own nindo. And maybe, after that he discovers what that is, he will come back. But for now, he doesn't turn his head to glance back; he has a path to walk forward on, heading away from what he's known.

After all, things are changing, and things will continue to change—for the better.


	2. to those who wait

[A/N] Hi. Update. Yay! This is a bit of a descriptive chapter. Later chapters will be more about stuff that's actually happening, but I think it's vital to explain the individual reactions to Sasuke's absence. And no, this will not turn into a kibasaku fic.

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**for the better** | chapter 2: _to those who wait  
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Sakura visits Naruto after she finishes her shift at the hospital, and over steaming cup noodles, they talk. They talk about how a village is beginning to manifest from the rubble at their feet, how Hinata's pale eyes glow when she smiles. They talk about visiting the Memorial Stone to say hello to Neji, and how it feels to be a hero acknowledged by everybody in the shinobi world. They talk about everything and anything, except about the boy that left them behind for the last time; it hurts too much to talk about it sober

So they finish their cup noodles and begin on the sake. Two and a half bottles later, they're both miserable. Sakura tries to be strong. Naruto tries to believe. Eventually they wind up on Naruto's floor, staring up at the ceiling, both trying to feel okay about the missing space that's supposed to hold Sasuke.

"We'll wait for him," Naruto whispers.

"We'll wait forever," Sakura whispers back.

Afraid and lonely in her inebriation, Sakura takes Naruto's hand, and he grips her fingers tight and doesn't let go.

* * *

Kakashi worries, sometimes.

He worries that Naruto isn't feeding himself properly. He's gotten a bit thinner lately. Not that the blond's ever been more than lean, but there's a frailness to him, in his expression, that's difficult not to notice.

He worries that Sakura is trying too hard at her job. The silly girl stubbornly heals and heals until she's spent all of her chakra, until her hands are shaking from the exertion and he has to drag her home for mandatory rest.

He worries about his two kids, that they'll break like his third did.

So he drops by Naruto's apartment in the morning with a grocery bag full of vegetables and a hairband that Sakura left behind at the hospital the other day. When he peeks in the window, he sees the two teenagers asleep together on the floor, a few empty bottles of sake sitting on the round table by their feet and their hands clasped tightly, desperately.

They're growing up, Kakashi thinks, and leaves the plastic bag hanging on the outside doorknob.

* * *

Sai is beginning to run out of ink.

The wooden floor of the home Yamato-taicho built for him is littered with hundreds of pieces of paper, ink illustrations spilling out of them. He's been drawing a lot of people, lately, trying to recreate familiar faces. He doesn't realize what he was trying to do until Yamanako Ino, blond and pushy and curious, drops by to say hello on her way for her shift at the hospital, and notices the creative chaos by her feet.

"Oh, you're drawing Team Seven, aren't you?" she asks, bending down and grabbing one. "Wow, you're really good, Sai. Even Sasuke-kun looks very realistic. Did you make this to give to Naruto and Sakura?"

Sai stares at his artwork in her slender hands. Uchiha Sasuke stares back at him.

"That's supposed to me," he says.

"Huh?"

He points to the dark-haired boy on the paper canvas. "That's supposed to me," he repeats, and suddenly there's something freezing cold and agonizing inside of him. He grabs the piece of paper from a bewildered Ino and tears it into halves, fourths, eighths, sixteenths, smaller and smaller until the illustration becomes arbitrary lines of black on white instead of a family that excludes him.

Ino watches wordlessly, as the former Root member bends down to grab his works of art and rip them all into makeshift confetti. He is methodical, expressionless; the torn pieces fall from his hands like snow. Later, when he's alone, Sai opens up the dictionary to pinpoint the name of this uncomfortable pain inside of him.

**_loneliness (noun):_ **_the sadness of being without friends or company; a depressing feeling of being alone_

Sai is ashamed of himself.

* * *

Hinata heads for her—boyfriend? comrade? hero?—Naruto-kun's apartment in the morning, after she visits the Memorial Stone. She saw Kakashi there, looking a little lifeless as he stared at the stone carved with the names of his fallen comrades, and it sparked a fear inside of her. She carefully carries a bag of healthy snacks in one hand and a freshly cut sunflower in the other, hoping to catch Naruto before he goes to help everybody rebuild the village.

After knocking on the rundown door with her knuckle, she patiently waits a few minutes for him to open it. When he does, she's almost surprised, but this isn't the first time she's seen him in this state. His blond hair is a mess, sticking up haphazardly on one side while flattened on the other, but that's not what worries her. He has dark circles and Hinata catches a whiff of alcohol.

"Was Sakura-chan here last night?" she asks softly, and he nods, so she drops what's in her hands and wraps her arms protectively around him.

"Sorry, Hinata," he whispers.

She shakes her head. "That's not it," she says, feeling her eyes well up. "I know you better than that." She trusts Naruto; it's not about Sakura. It's about the melancholy that hangs over him like a suffocating blanket. She pulls away slightly to look at the tired face of the boy she loves, and her heart breaks for him. "You're so sad, Naruto-kun."

"How could he leave us, Hinata?"

Her eyes become tender. "Sasuke-kun needs to live for himself. It's necessary. Or he'll live his whole life questioning who he is... although it's painful for the ones he left behind."

"I know," he says, the blue eyes sullen. "That's why I let him go. But that bastard's so selfish, leaving us behind like that! In my head, I get it. Even Sakura-chan told him to go... encouraged him to... but she cried last night."

"Yeah," she murmurs. She rests her cheek on his chest, and he rests his cheek on the top of her head. It's warm. "Are you lonely?"

He closes his eyes. "Maybe a little bit."

"Do you regret it?"

"I wish I didn't."

They remain like that until their hearts beat in time, until he's ready to let go. Naruto invites her inside and she cooks him a meal with the groceries that Kakashi left him.

"Thank you, Hinata," he tells her sincerely, and she smiles.

She loves him, that's all. Nothing to say thank you for.

* * *

Naruto heads for Tsunade's office after he's showered and tidy. He's still a little hungover, but he can ask Tsunade to fix that for him. The miso soup and rice that Hinata made for him is warm and filling in his stomach. He takes a moment to look around the village, noticing it's a beautiful day.

That's right. It's a beautiful day, with the birds chirping and the sun shining and the world turning on its axis, waiting for no one. He's not helping anybody by being sad. Sasuke left to live for himself, and Naruto understands now that it can't be helped. That bastard Sasuke had always living for somebody else, whether it was taking revenge for his family or carrying on the will of his older brother to protect the village or becoming Hokage to save future children from suffering the same misery as his family. He could only make his decisions based on choices others made for him.

But Naruto, too, has choices he needs to make for himself. So with a renewed hustle to his step, he makes his way over to the Hokage's office, exchanging greetings and grins with everybody he passes. He's going to be Hokage, someday, maybe even soon. He's gotten want he wanted: acknowledgement. Sasuke should be free to do the same.

So Naruto makes the choice to be happy about it.

* * *

Kiba asks Sakura out to dinner on a whim, because she looks a little lonely and reminds him of Shino and Hinata, and he's shocked when she tells him, "Sure."

"Uh," he says intelligently. "Wait, hold up, really?" He'd only asked for the hell of it; he hadn't been expecting an affirmative answer.

"Yeah," Sakura says, blinking her green eyes at him, as she looks up from her healing work on his arm. He injured it while trying to carry too many planks of wood for a civilian and then falling while trying to dodge a kid running around. "Why? Were you just joking?"

"No, no, I was just. Er. I'm surprised," he says honestly. "Because I thought you were... you know, you were waiting for Sasuke."

"I _am_ waiting for him," she replies, just as honestly. "I'll always be here, ready to welcome him home. But I can't spend my whole life expecting him to come back, and even he does, I can't expect him to fall in love with me, can I?"

She's different, Kiba thinks. She's different from who she was a few years ago, and it's not a bad change. "So you're using me to try to get over your feelings for him," states Kiba bluntly, tilting his head inquisitively at her, much in the way Akamaru would.

She smiles wryly. "I guess I am."

"Tonight, then," he says. "I'll pick you up when your shift is over."

"You're still taking me out? Even though I'm using you?"

He meets her green eyes and shrugs. "Maybe I'm using you, too."

It's not likely that she'll ever fall for him, or him for her, but there's nothing to hold them back from opening the door to that possibility. Kiba shrugs on his shirt and smiles at her, this slender medic nin with a weary heart, and wonders what the future will bring.

* * *

Maybe Sasuke will come back. Maybe not. Maybe it doesn't really matter. Maybe it's not about depending on others to define happiness for you, but about struggling, and crying, and sharing your pain with those who choose to stay. And then, you'll be strong enough to welcome back those who choose to come back with open arms and no tears.

The faces of the young shinobi of Konoha smile as they continue along with their days. Time waits for no one. Their futures may not be set in stone, and they may only be taking one tiny step forward, but they're here and living and breathing.

It's enough.


End file.
